Nine Star Hegemon Body Arts

Chapter 5280 Core Damaged

This battle showed Long Chen what a true expert was and highlighted the gap between him and these powerful figures.

Despite the crushing defeat, Long Chen didn’t resent the Silver Hair Void Crusher for using his higher cultivation base to bully him. After all, in the cultivation world, fairness didn’t exist. Survival depended on using whatever means necessary to defeat an enemy.

Perhaps someone else would not be able to recover from this loss. Perhaps their Dao-heart would crumble and they would never be able to rise again, but Long Chen wouldn’t. Defeat only fueled his fighting spirit. The stronger his opponents became, the more determined he grew to surpass them.

Even though the Silver Hair Void Crusher was a terrifying existence, Long Chen was not afraid of him. The former’s power was accumulated over countless years, while Long Chen was still young and had limitless potential. As long as Long Chen continued to cultivate hard, he would surpass the Silver Hair Void Crusher sooner or later. However, he knew the Silver Hair Void Crusher wouldn’t give him that chance to grow.

With his Star Peering Heavenly Mirror shattered by the white-robed Long Chen, the Silver Hair Void Crusher would struggle to locate him again. These mirrors were rare treasures, with each divine commander possessing only one. If the Silver Hair Void Crusher wanted a replacement, he would have to borrow one from another commander. But that presented its own set of problems—he couldn’t admit his failure, or that his mirror had been destroyed and that he himself was badly wounded.

More importantly, greed played a role. His expression when he saw the Earth Cauldron made his intentions clear—he wanted it for himself and wouldn’t risk alerting others. According to Long Chen’s analysis, the Silver Hair Void Crusher would hide to recuperate before coming after him again.

Long Chen, meanwhile, had other priorities. After this battle, his Saint realm was fully stabilized, and he could now prepare to advance to the next realm—the Sage King realm.

For now, he was in no danger of being immediately attacked. So, before the Silver Hair Void Crusher recovered, he would have to raise his realm as much as possible. The higher his realm, the stronger his Spirit Root would grow, and that would greatly increase his combat power.

Long Chen spent three days recuperating, restoring 80% of his energy. However, when he checked his primal chaos space, his heart sank. The Fusang Trees and Moon Trees were completely withered. Flickers of flames occasionally appeared on the leaves, but they felt listless and weak.

As for Lei Linger and Huo Linger, they had transformed into tiny, one-foot-long dragons, their auras frail. Both had given everything to protect Long Chen, exhausting themselves completely and reverting to their primitive forms.

In this battle, Long Chen had used up everything; it was incredibly bitter. Reflecting on the battle, Long Chen realized that without the intervention of his heart-devil, the white-robed Long Chen, he would have died.

“I can’t let such a thing happen again,” Long Chen muttered, clenching his fists. It had been many years since he had felt so profoundly powerless. It was agonizing.

Once his own recovery was complete, Long Chen stabilized his spiritual space and placed the Earth Cauldron and Evilmoon within it to nourish them. However, with Huo Linger in a deep slumber, the Earth Cauldron’s recovery would take longer than Evilmoon’s. Evilmoon had secretly absorbed a bit of the white-robed Long Chen’s power, so there was no need to worry about its recovery.

Hoping for guidance, Long Chen tried to commune with the Dragon Sovereign but received no response. The Earth Cauldron told him that back when it had sent the Dragonblood Legion and the Dragon Domain’s people away, the Dragon Sovereign had put in some of its power as well.

Due to having just woken up, the Dragon Sovereign’s power was very limited. While it couldn’t help Long Chen against a powerful foe, it could aid the Earth Cauldron in sending everyone away. It wanted the Earth Cauldron to save a bit of energy so that it could help Long Chen.

Hearing that, Long Chen cursed himself for being so weak. Rather than helping the Dragon Sovereign, he even made the Dragon Sovereign use up its limited energy stores for him.

However, the Earth Cauldron told him not to worry. Since the Dragon Sovereign had helped, it had definitely brought his comrades somewhere close to the Endless Desolation’s Dragon Domain. Their safety should not be in question.

Hearing that, Long Chen relaxed. His original plan was to go after everyone after he recovered. After all, the Endless Desolation was filled with dangers.

However, if his companions had the Dragon Sovereign’s guidance, then there was nothing for him to worry about. Suddenly, he asked, “Senior, where do you think I should go?”

Long Chen was probing the Earth Cauldron, but the Earth Cauldron said, “All paths are beneath your own feet, and each step you take leads to a different future. I cannot interfere with this karma.”

Long Chen could understand the Earth Cauldron’s refusal to guide him. It was afraid of the karma involved. Pointing Long Chen in a direction might actually harm him.

Since the Earth Cauldron didn’t want to give him directions, Long Chen didn’t force it. Right now, the Earth Cauldron, Evilmoon, Huo Linger, and Lei Linger were in an extremely weak state. Ultimately, Long Chen chose to be safe and slowly got deeper into the Endless Desolation.

He quickly found another stronghold of the devil race. Without wasting words, Long Chen took out Evilmoon and slaughtered them. Unable to find the altar, he swung Evilmoon around randomly, tearing apart the land, forcing out the altar in the most clumsy and violent manner. When the heavenly genius within the altar appeared, Long Chen directly cut off its head and tossed it into the primal chaos space.

After battling the Silver Hair Void Crusher, Long Chen wasn’t interested in fighting the geniuses in the altars. After tossing the corpses into the primal chaos space, he continued onward.

With these high-level corpses absorbed by the black soil, a large amount of life energy swelled within the primal chaos space. The withered Moon Trees and Fusang Trees rapidly revived like the spring had come once again.

However, Huo Linger had sucked away so much of their power, damaging their cores. For them to fully recover would definitely take some time.

With the life energy filling the primal chaos space, Huo Linger and Lei Linger’s tiny bodies quivered, greedily absorbing it. However, their spiritual fluctuations were still too weak to communicate with Long Chen.

This time, they had sacrificed too much. These two had followed Long Chen for so many years and had done so much for him. Seeing their weak state, he was deeply pained.

As the black soil devoured these corpses, Huo Linger and Lei Linger slowly recovered, causing Long Chen to feel a bit better.

After settling his emotions, with Evilmoon in hand, Long Chen continued his journey deeper into the Endless Desolation, prepared for whatever lay ahead.